AllMovie

This award-winning documentary presents the memories of two elderly German men who fought on opposite sides during the Spanish Civil War. In the process of their interviews and narration, each man's testimony is juxtaposed against the other's to highlight the ironies of fate and the different destinies of both men. One of the men was a mason who joined the International Brigade to fight Franco and the fascists in Spain. On the one hand, he had to leave Germany when Hitler came to power because he is a Marxist and on the other, he wanted to help defeat fascism. The other gentleman was born into a family of military officers and became a pilot early on. He flew with Franco's Condor Legion and was among the pilots who bombed Guernica. As their histories and memories play off against each other, the men's narrations are brought up to the present. Among many oppositions is a final irony that is not surprising: the retired general is financially well-off due to a good military pension (and immediate advancement in the military in 1956 after he had been absent for eleven years), while the Marxist and his wife are relatively poor. Anyone with an interest in modern European history would especially appreciate this documentary.